I am so tired.
It was a long, but very tiring weekend for me. Friday evening, I did not do much, except get my equipment and truck ready for a full weekend of working in the tornado damaged areas in Piedmont and Cashion. Most of the damage was south of Cashion, closer to the outskirts of Piedmont. Myself and several of my Central Oklahoma REACT team members spent all day Saturday, assisting the First Baptist Church of Cashion in delivering bottled water, snacks, gloves and anything else that would be useful for those that were cleaning up the tornado damaged areas. Words and pictures can’t possibly describe the devastation that I witnessed. I took lots of pictures (which are posted on my Facebook page), but even the pictures don’t do it justice. There were homes that were leveled to where even the plumbing was stripped completely out. Other homes received major damage, but still had a few walls up.
Our team, with the assistance from the Cashion, Oklahoma Fire Department, drove to many different areas of Piedmont and delivered much needed supplies. The attitudes of those homeowners that lost their homes were very upbeat. They were just happy and felt blessed that they were still alive. Many were still in shock because they lost everything, but were happy to live and tell about it. As we drove through the neighborhoods, the clean-up efforts continued, with hundreds of people pitching in to help. There is debris scattered all over the country side. I really don’t see how they can get every piece of debris picked up. There is debris in trees that can’t be reached. I think most people are just concentrating on their homes right now and once they get their homes cleaned up, then they may work on removing debris from their property. Either way, it will be very time consuming.
We were blessed to be served a nice not lunch by the members of the First Christian Church of Cashion. They were serving food to all the families involved in the tornadoes and to the volunteer workers. Our team enjoyed a nice, hot, meal with lots of food and good desserts. After eating, we went right back to work and continued our deliveries. By around 6:00 pm, things were starting to wind down and we were all very tired. We decided to call it a day and all the REACT members headed home. We had already decided that we were not going to work in Piedmont on Sunday because we all needed a day to rest and relax.
On Sunday, I did absolutely nothing but go to church. I took a very long nap in the afternoon and then made it up in time to head back to the church for our fifth Sunday night sing-a-long. Around 15 members of our church participated in either singing a solo, duet, or reading a poem. Our men’s quartet also sang and had a good time. I sang with the quartet, as well as singing a solo, “Because He Lives.” We all had a great time and then enjoyed a time of fellowship afterwards with snacks, desserts and ice cream.
I was up at 6:30 on Monday morning and got ready to head back up to Piedmont. I filled up my truck with gas, grabbed a donut at 7-11 and headed to north OKC to meet up with some fellow REACT members. We headed on up to the First Baptist Church of Cashion and picked up more supplies to deliver to the tornado victims. As we drove through the areas that were destroyed by the tornado, we noticed there were very few people out working. We assumed that maybe many of them worked all day Sunday and decided to take Monday off, since it was a holiday. There were a few people working, but none of them needed any supplies. There were many different organizations delivering supplies, so all of the tornado victims were being taken care of and did not need anything from us. We enjoyed a hamburger cook-out at a building in Piedmont where they were serving tornado victims and volunteers. After we ate, we headed back up to the Falcon Lake area and stayed around there the rest of the afternoon, assisting families in going through the debris.
Around 6 pm, I decided that my body was too tired to go on, so I left the area. Before I left, I came upon a reporter from channel 4, Marika Lorraine. Last week, myself and a couple of REACT members met up with her when we were out storm spotting. She is a very nice lady and very personable. I had a chance to talk with her briefly last evening after she interviewed a couple who lost their home in the tornado. She gave me one of her business cards so I could contact her directly about any breaking news. I left the area and headed back to Piedmont, where we had the cook-out. I was going to meet up with Jessica Holloway, a reporter from channel 5 who interviewed me last month during the wildfires in north east Oklahoma County. When I arrived, they were doing a live shot for the news, so I waited around until they finished….then I had a chance to speak with her. I even had a friend take a picture of me and her together. I did not do any interviews yesterday, but it was sure good seeing those two nice and attractive ladies.
http://www.okcentralreact.org/
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